Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi looks on while attending a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday.

Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

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Washington

Iran on Tuesday said international inspectors can come visit its newly revealed uranium enrichment facility. But that does not necessarily mean Tehran has decided to come clean about the buried plant, located near the city of Qom.

Iranian officials provided no specifics of any such visit, saying only that they would schedule one soon. Nor did they say whether they would accept such intrusive measures as allowing inspectors to interview the scientists and other personnel who work at the site.

The site is at the base of a mountain and was placed adjacent to a military base to help protect it against aerial attack. If it had been placed elsewhere Iran would have had to go to the trouble and expense of surrounding it with its own ground-to-air defense system, said Mr. Salehi, who also heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.